Category: Student work

70s Logotype

For this project I chose the theme: 70s retro. I started off with a mood board trying to capture the aesthetic of the decade. I compiled images from pop culture, such as Andy Warhol’s iconic banana graphic for the band ‘The Velvet Underground’, and added photos of things such as interior design. These images gave me a clear idea of some colours that were in at the time and, usefully, these colours complement each other well.

I took inspiration from the shape of flairs and invented a triangular, bottom heavy typeface. I tried to replicate the flair shape at the bottom of every stem. This led to some of the letters having a rather irregular shape to them – you can see that the space under the A’s crossbar is upside-down. I decided to refine the typeface further by experimenting with using circles as counters. This gave the font a more playful feel.

I took this concept into adobe illustrator and created a cleaner version of the typeface. I didn’t focus too much on making the shapes anatomically correct as the slight inaccuracies give the logotype character.  It has an artisan look to it.

I sampled some colours from my mood board and made some coloured variations of the logotype. Bright colours were popular in the 1970s so I chose a bright red then used more muted colours that fit with this well. I think my design would also fit into the psychedelic 60s style – this was a notable influence on 70s culture.

Logotype trends 2022

My logotype originally stemmed from the 70s retro design. I was inspired by the colour palette of earthy and dull tones so tried to imitate this into my logotype with the green and beige colours. Whilst curating my moodpboard, I liked the idea to incorporating an old record into the design and I came up with focusing the ‘brand name’ around a circle alongside using fonts that still fit into the 70s aesthetic  whilst also contrasting each other. The idea to add the leaves at the bottom was to give the logotype an eco feel along with the green colours as I also feel this represents my personal beliefs and style in the image.

Minimalist Logo Concept

After being set the brief of 10 different themes, I decided to use the theme of New Minimalism. I did some preliminary research into this theme, providing me with a foundation knowledge on the topic.

New Minimalism Interior Design

Following this research, I decided to look for appropriate images. I began on Pintrest, but quickly moved onto Behance, as I found these projects more complete and done with intention. I created a digital mood-board on there, collating ideas that would help to inspire and influence my choices.

https://www.behance.net/collection/188421593/Minimalist-Logos

Next, I complete a round of quick sketches, allowing the swift generation and trial of ideas. This process was very valuable, providing a way of testing concepts and ideas with the ability of easy refinement.

I then moved into Illustrator, allowing me to put together designs with more precision. I began by finding some appropriate fonts, using the Adobe Fonts library to provide a wider range of possibilities. Having compiled these, I began trialing different layouts of text for the design, trying to find the most appropriate for the minimal design focus. While more space would give a more airy and minimal appearance, the focus on functionality seen in the research gave reason to keep the kerning to a minimum. The combination of sans and serif typefaces also interested me, allowing some sense of style and personality to emerge from the logo design. After trialing these, I found a successful combination – the larger serif text allowed hierarchy to be built, with the lower sans serif typeface helping to keep the logo visually balanced.

Wanting to experiment further, I began to create my two initial letters from lines and shapes. While the final design of this, seen on the final page, looks somewhat effective, I thought that it would likely not work within its desired context. While minimalistic, the design conveyed more of the contemporary aspects of type, while being too thin for many of the likely applications of the logo. For this reason, I decided to continue with the first complete logo design, presented on the third page.

Here are the examples of the working document and my two basic design ideas –

Minimalist Logo Design

Having produced a final idea, I decided to apply it to a Photoshop Mock-up, allowing me to evaluate its success within the context of its use. Similarly, the minimalistic design style links more to the overall design than the individual elements. After finding a very simple Mock-up design, I applied my design just above the central line, drawing a viewers eye to that aspect of the focal image. I then added small text above and below, using the repetition of the sans serif font to create harmony and balance within the design.

With more time, I would likely look at more colour options, only using one to keep the design minimal and clean. However, when reflecting on the design, I think that this works well. The monochromatic colours work well within the context of the Mock-up, and the design is well balanced.

Brown Design

After selecting the theme “90s Urban Style” prior to the session on Thursday, I decided to create a brief mood board to quickly illustrate the instant ideas I had about my theme. 90s Urban

The 90s style made me instantly think of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (the famous TV series from the 90s), as the main character and the introduction to the show presents a typical “street themed” aesthetic. I noticed throughout the images I observed that there was a consistent theme of graffiti and vibrant (but minimalist) colour schemes. Taking inspiration from this, I pursued the graffiti style, as it perfectly fit the theme of noticeable and eye-catching logos.

Graffiti Design Experimentation Through using Adobe Illustrator, I wrote my name in many different fonts until I found the font “The Blacklist”, this font had joined letters and had varying thickness to the lines, which was a common graffiti style back in the 90s. Additionally, I made my own gradient to use for my lettering, as I wanted to adopt the vibrant hues that were present in the 90s street art. After adding the lines underneath the main text to accentuate the words as well as the overall theme I included a black drop shadow as this was commonly used to add to the 3D element of street art. I believe I have done well in producing a 90s inspired logo for myself with the software that I was provided, but if I was to improve my work I maybe would have experimented further with different gradients or extra layers on top of my text for a better effect.

Different Every Time

Brief

A client has written a novel and asks you to work on the design of the book. He wants you to develop a concept that enhances and brings forward the visual dimension of the story. He does not request a traditional design, but a book that helps to develop the narrative through its form and materiality.

Out of the given story options, I chose Labyrinth, which goes as follows:

“A family moves into a house with unexpected spatial characteristics. The rooms keep shifting position every time a door is opened. The family members are trapped inside the house and start a journey to find the front door. While they keep moving from one room to the next, they discover that they are not the only ones lost in the impossibly infinite labyrinth of the house.”

Process

Rather than trying to think too carefully about how to display the concept of ‘Labyrinth’, I thought that just starting to work with the book after a couple of rough sketches would be a better approach given the amount of time we had to complete the project.

To get a clearer picture of what I wanted to create, I did some research on sculptural books and decided to base my design on the work of Brian Dettmer. From the summary of the story Labyrinth, I decided to focus on the fact the every time a door is opened, the rooms keep shifting position. To express this idea in a physical form I had the idea to separate the books pages into equal sized sections and cut out different shapes in each section to represent the rooms shifting, so that when the layers are laid on top of each other, the book itself looks like a labyrinth.

I started cutting out shapes from sections of the book, however due to the thickness of  the book, the sections were relatively big so cutting was a difficult task. Because of this, some of the smaller corners and thin strips of paper tore, so I reinforced these with tape, which also made the structure of each section stronger and thus made them clearer. However I decided not to tape up the top section so that it would look more haphazard and confusing, relaying how the family would be feeling at the start of the story.

Reflection

This project really made me think about how to incorporate a concept or idea into an object that already exists, rather than making something from scratch. I enjoyed this project as it was very hands on from the start and had a lot of freedom concerning how we wanted to manipulate the books.

70s Retro Themed Logo Design

For my logo trends design, I picked the theme of 70s retro style. I first created a mood board of the 70s retro styled interior design which featured lots of interesting patterns such as floral, geometric, seamless swirls, psychedelic patterns etc… I really liked how colourful and bold everything was, but still had an elegant feel to it. I then looked at fonts, logos and brands in this era which matched very well to this retro theme. I again really liked how the text is really vivd and eye-catching, with lots of colours, making me feel rather happy and excited.

And so with this research, I wanted to mirror this kind of excitement I felt when looking at this style and put it into my logo. I started off with the font and colours. I was inspired by the Bee Gees ‘Staying Alive’ title in my second mood board and decided to use these shades of pink and a similar font. 

I then created a ring of circles with pastel colours of the rainbow, imitating a vinyl to possibly have a music theme, linked with the Bee Gees and the retro themed music at the time. I got inspiration from my second mood board again where it looks like there are an array of records lined up beside each other. I thought this would be a good way to encapsulate my name (my brand) within the circle to give it a clear central focus. When putting my name in the middle, I thought it looked quite bland so looking back at my mood board, I saw a splatter-like shape and thought it would be nice to add behind my name to look like it was popping out, giving it more texture and depth. I originally drew a black splatter with a turquoise outline, however, it was slightly too harsh to the eye, so after some debate around colour, I changed it to white with a pastel purple outline, making it easier to read the logo.

Overall, I am generally happy with my design as I think it fits very well with the theme of 70s retro style. I also like how colourful it is which will capture the attention of viewers. If i had more time, I would probably reconfigure the splatter behind and continue to experiment with colours as I still think the white is too bland. Maybe I could have incorporated another retro themed pattern within it.

Instruction signs

When taking pictures of the signs I started in the Typography department, and I started to take pictures of signs and posters with serifs. For example, the road sign that reads ‘MINISTER AVENUE’ has serifs on the typeface.

As I left the department and went outside I noticed numerous signs with information and instructions. I then found a theme of ‘instructions and informative signs’. I continued taking pictures of bold instruction signs. I organised my pictures into two categories. Instruction signs with text and instruction signs with icons. The first set shows instruction signs with text. An example of one of the sign is the blue one that reads ‘staff parking only’. The blue colour for the sign shows that this is a positive instruction sign that must be followed. Another example with the colour blue is ‘fire door keep shut’, again this sign represents that these doors must be kept closed at all times. The colour blue for these instruction/informative signs will draw attention. The sign that reads ‘drop off only’ and ‘no entry’ are in red. Red symbolises important and strong instructions. The colour red can also be seen from a very far distance making it useful to be in red to inform people on what the sign is about.

The second category I chose was instruction and informative signs with icons. One example I really liked was the yellow sign which read ‘floor may be slippery when wet’ and has an icon of a person slipping. This sign caught my eye because the sign is showing you the effect of what can happen if you walk on the wet floor. Yellow signs are simply warning signs but they are still informative as they are warning you on what could happen. Yellow also suggests danger. An instruction sign with icons which reads ‘no smoking in this building’ is a command and is telling people not to smoke. The icon with a cigarette with a red line through it makes it very clear that this must be followed, and with the sign being red it makes it stand out more. Other signs such as the ‘give way’ sign with arrows shows to allow drivers to pass by coming from the direction of the arrows and signs like ‘CCTV cameras in operation’ with a CCTV camera icon makes it noticeable that there are cameras in this building. Again this is a yellow sign suggesting the danger on what could happen if instructions are not followed.

 

Logo – 90’s Theme

I created a logo on Adobe Illustrator for my own brand in the style of my chosen theme of Urban 90’s. First, i created a mood board on Powerpoint which was easily accessible as I was designing, to put all my ideas and inspirations in one. I gathered my favourite pictures and analysed what was common throughout to create my logo. I then began using regular shapes to compliment the lines and squiggles seen throughout the 90’s patterns as well as the font reflecting ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ which went well with my theme. I then aligned a sans serif font to balance the logo as the next hierarchy of text to result in my finished logo. I like how this clearly reflects the theme, however some of the colours could be altered to adjust the readability.

Staircase

For the Broken Narratives project, I chose the story ‘Staircase’. As the brief explains, a man is being referred to lower floors for priority reasons but as you get nearer the bottom of the 7 floors, the more ill the patients are. I interpreted this as the man is getting closer and closer to death as he moves down floors, until he can’t go any further and that point is when he dies.

I wanted to portray the story in the shape of the book so you feel like you’re going on a journey down the staircase with the man as you read. I cut a staircase that had 7 steps (one for each floor) in hope that it makes you feel that as you are getting lower down the staircase, you are closer to death, which is represented by darkness in this case. The roughness of the cutting represents the man’s deteriorating health. I also coloured in the sides of the steps to define them, but kept this rough as well for the same reason.

Minimalist Branding

For this project, I decided to go with a minimalist branding approach. I love how clean this style is, and with the right color combinations, font, and graphics, you can create something that is eye-catching, yet simple. I feel as though a lot of “minimalist” brands these days look the same, so my goal was to keep these elements by adding texture and unique colors. The font I decided to go with was a bold Sans Serif that was all upper-case. The reason I decided to go with this instead of something thinner and lower-case was because the goal would be to use a gold foil/gradient effect for the letters. Additionally, I love the look of line drawing, so to add something extra, I decided to incorporate a flower that would frame the entire logo. As for colors, I think the gold foil details would look great with a dark teal background as featured in the mood board. The combination of all of these elements give a natural and organic look which is what I wanted to achieve with the photographs that I included as well.